


Carnival

by Mici (noharlembeat)



Series: Eight Nights [5]
Category: Kings (TV 2009)
Genre: Drunkeness, F/F, Jewish Holidays, LINEAR FIC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 13:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2812994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noharlembeat/pseuds/Mici
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps, what it takes, is a show of drunkeness to sharpen what is lingering below the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carnival

David is drunk.

He is so drunk he’s not quite sure where he is. It’s Carnival and he’s pressing his skin against someone, and they have a mask on, and they are _laughing_. David sucks in air, but he feels like it comes into his lungs through the slimmest straw, and whoever it is - mystery person, man, woman, he’s not entirely sure - presses their mouth against David’s, and he kisses them as if all the air in the room is sitting on the person’s tongue, and it’s the only way he will ever manage to breathe again.

Someone else presses behind him, and he feels his shoulders drop, and he does not think of his virtue or of his honor or even of some last, fleeting remnant of his heterosexuality as he feels an insistent erection press against his hip. Instead he turns his head and feels the person behind him that last, soft bit of air that’s still caught between his teeth from the first kiss.

It takes Ethan to pull him away, it must be Ethan, because no one else would lay hands on him like this, not when David is so drunk and all he wants to do is give himself over to the music and forget everything, even as flashes of his father’s body are bright behind his eyelids. “You’re _drunk_ ,” Ethan says, cheerfully, and David laughs and fall over him, and lets Ethan carry him to a corner of the bar. 

“You’re not drunk enough,” David retorts, pleased that he cannot hear the slur in his speech as he hears it echoing in the inside of his head. “It’s Carnival, and you’re too sober,” he adds, as if that wasn’t obvious.

“I’m not that sober,” Ethan replies, but he orders them more drinks anyway; he has to. David’s not yet eighteen.

~~~~~

Michelle is drunk.

She can feel her entire body wheeling even as she lies still on her back, Claudia straddling her. Claudia, she’s drunk too. “Come on,” Claudia whines, her fingertips pressing against Michelle’s shoulders. “Don’t be so _good_. All they want is for you to kiss me.”

 _They_ are boys, Claudia always has _boys_ , too many boys, really. Michelle did not want to get drunk. She’s only this way for the sake of Carnival, for the act of celebration, and she will regret this in the morning. Jack, she thinks, will get the blame, but it wasn’t Jack. For once, it was just Michelle. 

She turns her head, though, and she knows she’s giggling, and someone in the room says, “No one is going to take a picture, our phones got confiscated by your security,” and Claudia is warm and her fingers are plucking at Michelle’s brastrap, so she leans up and kisses her, fondly, warmly.

She does not expect it to go from something chaste to something filthy, with Claudia’s tongue in her mouth and people hollering (boys, it’s _boys_ ) and a sudden burst of intense warmth, like the burn of the liquor going down, trailing up her spine.

“What’s going on-” she hears, and when she turns there’s Jack in the doorway.

“You’re not drunk enough,” someone says, and Michelle is starting to push at Claudia, feeling ill now. Jack, he shouldn’t be here, he had another party, he said, his face scowls and there is a storm in his eyes like there is a storm in their father’s eyes. 

Claudia doesn’t move. “Are you jealous?” she asks instead, at Jack, and her hand goes to Michelle’s breast, and suddenly she doesn’t like this, it’s not fun and bubbly and warm anymore, suddenly she just wants to be out of this room; not because Claudia is touching her, but because Claudia is _using_ her. She is not strong enough to push her off, though, and it takes Jack to lift her, and then to pull Michelle up.

Her brother smells like some thick liquor and smoke, ripe and sweet, like rotting fruit, but she pulls herself against him, anyway. “You’re drunk,” he says, mildly.

“It’s Carnival. You’re not drunk enough,” she replies, but then she tugs his coat. “I want to go home,” she says against his chest.

“Don’t be that way,” Claudia says, whispering up against them, pushing her body against Michelle’s, crowding her against Jack’s chest. “The party’s only started. Come on, Jack,” she tries, as if he’ll be easier to convince. “At least there’s one person who can say she’s kissed both of you.”

Jack just takes a step back, pulling Michelle with him. “She’s not one for games, you know that,” he says, like it’s a joke, but his hand is firm on Michelle’s wrist. “I’m taking you home.”

She summons up every bit of her authority, her princesseliness, but it doesn’t do anything but make her sag against Jack more. In the car, Jack immediately lets her go, but she curls against him. “I’m supposed to be protecting you,” she says, “I’m older.”

“You’re so drunk you can’t even protect yourself,” he snaps, but in his hand, there’s a cell phone, how did he get it, who did it belong to, because there on the screen is a picture of her and Claudia kissing, and he’s deleting it and tossing the phone out of the window of the limousine.

~~~~~~

Silas is drunk.

He has been drunk - furiously, infuriatingly drunk - for the past three hours, he drinks and God thunders and they argue, man against nature, the order of kings railing against the chaos of a God who does not respect the holidays that man creates for the sake of _celebration_. But there is no malice in it. Is it the kind of arguing where both parties enjoy it, where the heavens cry out the joy of _companionship_.

Silas is not yet so drunk that he would confuse sin and virtue, or so drunk that he will find his wife and whisper Helen’s name, but it is a close sort of thing, a tiptoe against the edges of oblivion.

~~~~~~

Thomasina is not drunk.

She feels like, perhaps, she is the only person in the city who is not revelling tonight. She watches the spirals of the royal family; she watches them make their turns, as she does every year, as she does every day. 

But tonight is Carnival, and she stands near the king’s guard, who stand just inside the balcony where outside there is a storm, so localized that the rest of the city cannot hear it over the rabble. She does not wonder why, she simply accepts it as it is, and has a towel ready, and a car, because the king will be so drunk as he will call Rose _Helen_ , if he is allowed near her, so he will spend his night elsewhere.

She also does not question when Jack comes in, hours (or days) early from revels, with his sister under his arm. Instead she watches them pass and calls the cooks - traditional sweets, but also the kind of food that will soak up liquor and enough water to drown a man. 

She celebrates Carnival in her own way. There is a ribbon around her wrist, and she turns it, absently, and smiles, and edges closer to Heaven.


End file.
